


Instruction

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Soul Eater, Soul Eater Not!
Genre: Awkwardness, Communication, Established Relationship, F/F, Kissing, No Plot/Plotless, Partnership, Studying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-07 01:11:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17950760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "But after Jackie’s folded herself into deliberate comfort in the window seat, and laid her textbook open in front of her to the pages she means to review, and opened up her notebook to a clean page ready and waiting for the information she may set upon it, she finds her gaze drifting down the hallway instead of holding to the text on the page before her." Jackie does a bad job at pretending to be casual but Kim proves more tolerant than expected.





	Instruction

It’s not that Jackie is looking for Kim’s classroom. She has work of her own to do, plenty of assignments she could be getting an early start on or studying that could provide her with a more firm foundation than she already has for the lessons scheduled for next week; and of course the library is always peaceful, and at present her own apartment is a haven of calm and quiet, always ready for her to make best use of it and of her time to improve herself. But she is already at the DWMA, after all, if only to consider the wooden tags hanging off the mission board in the front hallway, and she doesn’t really need to go to the library, not when she has the textbooks she already needs in the bookbag slung over her shoulder. There’s no point in traveling back over the distance to her apartment, not when the current classes in session leave the Academy quiet enough to more than serve her purpose, and if she finds a seat in the alcove of one of the windows near one of said classes, it could be just coincidence that she knows that same room to be full of the meister group that happens to include Kim within it.

Jackie’s not looking for distraction. She means to study, means to make focused, productive use of her time alone -- a task the more vital, since the addition of Kim’s company in her day-to-day life has wrecked such havoc on her attention in other settings -- so that she can feel confident she is as prepared for her classes next week as she can be. But after she’s folded herself into deliberate comfort in the window seat, and laid her textbook open in front of her to the pages she means to review, and opened up her notebook to a clean page ready and waiting for the information she may set upon it, she finds her gaze drifting down the hallway instead of holding to the text on the page before her, finds her mouth occupied with the end of her pen instead of shaping out the new terms she means to be memorizing, and if her thoughts hold to the studying before her for more than a handful of minutes together they only seem to scatter the worse when they inevitably slip free of her hold.

She’s lost in distracted thought, having put no more than three words down in her notebook before catching the end of her pen between her teeth to worry at the plastic as her gaze fixes itself to the door of the classroom where the meisters are presently gathered. She can only barely make out the sound of the class happening within from where she’s sitting, and the clearest part of that is the crisp tone of the professor lecturing rather than the responses from the students, but Jackie is still lost in imagining the hall within, the rows of seats with scattered meisters within them. Kim must be near the back of the room, maybe tucked away into a corner at enough distance from the front that her striking hair can be overlooked; maybe she’s claimed one of the seats nearest the high arch of the windows for herself, so she can cast her gaze sideways to wander out through the desert-blue sky that stretches over the city itself. She’s probably not paying attention to the class at all, and less to anything the students around her are doing; and then “Jackie?” comes a voice so perfectly aligned to the image in Jackie’s head that it’s all the more startling to her thoughts. “What are you doing out here?”

Jackie’s teeth come together at the end of her pen, biting down with enough force that when she turns her head the pen comes with her instead of staying in her hand so she’s left with her mouth half-open around proof of her idle distraction as she stares wide-eyed at the girl standing a few strides away down the hallway. Kim is rocked back on her heels, her hands stuck deep into the pockets of her hoodie and her clear eyes wide with surprise as she blinks at Jackie in front of her.

“ _Ah_ ,” Jackie gasps, too startled to hold back the admission of it in sound at her lips, and then becomes aware at once of the picture she must make, sitting in the nearest window to Kim’s classroom and staring at the door with too much distraction to even put her pen to paper instead of braced at her teeth. Her face flares hot and she turns away at once, moving as quickly as she twists to pull the pen from her mouth and push it to the far side of the seat as if to erase the sight of her own distraction as entirely from Kim’s memory. “Kim. What are you doing here?”

“I asked first.” The sound of footsteps announces Kim’s approach but Jackie doesn’t look up from behind the weight of her hair falling around her face. She’s never been so grateful for the heavy curtain it makes sliding forward over her shoulders. “Why aren’t you in the library or something with all the other perfect students?”

“It was such a nice day,” Jackie says, struggling for an explanation that makes any more sense than the real reason she happened to choose this exact location for her work. “It...it seemed a shame to spend it cooped up in the library.”

“Yeah?” Kim sounds less than perfectly convinced but Jackie doesn’t dare lift her gaze to look up at the other girl as the sound of footsteps draws up alongside her before scuffing to a stop. “That’s unusual. I didn’t think there was anything nicer for straight-A students than that place.” The cushion of the window seat shifts as Kim braces a hand against the far side of it and leans in. “Doesn’t studying usually involve a little more writing than that, anyway?”

Jackie grabs at the edge of her notebook to slam it shut on the telltale lack of any kind of notes over the page before her. “I was...I was doing the reading first.”

“By chewing on your pen and staring down the hallway.” Jackie’s face flames hotter and Kim laughs and shifts to turn around. “What’s so exciting about a bunch of classrooms anyway?” Jackie flinches and glances up in spite of herself; Kim’s gazing down the hallway instead of looking at her, her head tilted to the side and lips pursed like she’s truly considering the question. Even with embarrassment coursing through her until she thinks she might burst into an accidental weapon transformation, Jackie can’t help but appreciate the curl of Kim’s lashes made long in profile and the soft waves of her short-cut hair falling with tousled elegance over her forehead and at the back of her shirt collar.

Kim’s forehead creases, her mouth shifts onto thought. “Hey,” she says, as if the idea has just occurred to her, and she lifts her hand to point straight down the hallway. “Isn’t that _my_ classroom?” And she tilts her head to look at Jackie before Jackie can think to turn her head to disguise the focus of the gaze she’s holding fixed on the other girl’s face. Jackie’s face flames, her thoughts go blank, and she turns her head sharply to look out the window next to her even though she’s seeing nothing at all of the desert landscape spread out on the other side.

“Is it?” she manages, in a high tone that would be far more persuasive if her voice weren’t trembling with tension. “I didn’t...it’s weird that you’re out here, shouldn’t you be in there with everyone else? Are you playing truant again?”

“Weirder that _you’re_ out here,” Kim says without bothering to acknowledge Jackie’s attempt at reclaiming the upper hand in the conversation. “What are you doing, anyway? You’re not studying, that’s for sure.” She snorts an inelegant laugh. “As if you need to anyway. Were you just hanging around to stalk me when I got out of class?” Laughter still clings to her voice, making her amusement at the idea too clear to be mistaken, but Jackie’s face burns with guilt enough to flicker her gaze back to Kim’s face before she can help herself. Kim’s laughter dies, her expression goes blank with surprise; and then her lips catch onto a grin twice as wide as the one that came before and with the dark of laughter behind her gaze to grant it extra force.

“You _were_ ,” she says, and there’s no amount of ducking her face into shadow that will save Jackie from the bone-deep amusement on Kim’s tongue. “Oh my god, Jackie, you have _got_ to unwind a little bit or everyone is going to think you’re a total creep.” Kim pauses for a moment as if to consider; Jackie doesn’t look up to watch her but she can see the other girl lift a hand as if to tap a thoughtful finger to her lips. “Then again maybe they’re right. You _are_ pretty obsessive, you know. Maybe it would be for the best if I just got myself a different partner after all.”

“ _No_ ,” Jackie blurts, and lifts her head at once, all her self-defensive avoidance forgotten in the surge of panic that hits her instead. “No, Kim, you can’t, I--” and then she sees the way Kim is grinning at her with her head tipped to the side so she can smirk at Jackie’s brief panic, and Jackie presses her lips together as if she can hold back the giveaway tension in her response.

“You can’t,” she says again, a little more calmly than before but still with less self-assurance than she could wish. “You said you’d partner with me for the rest of the school year at least. You said that I was a good partner. You can’t…” Jackie ducks her head forward and presses her lips together as she wills herself to hold back the tears that want to threaten her lashes. “You can’t dump me again.”

“Technically I can,” Kim says, as lightly as if she hasn’t noticed Jackie’s emotion or perhaps just doesn’t care. “Partnerships are no good if either person is forced into them, you know. All the promises in the world don’t mean anything if I decide to change my mind.” Jackie’s breath catches, her throat tightens, and then Kim heaves a sigh from next to her.

“Jackie,” she says. Jackie thinks about resisting and keeping her head ducked down, but Kim just waits and eventually she can’t help the impulse to glance up through the weight of her hair to meet the other girl’s gaze. Kim is leaning in towards her, her head turned and the whole of her attention turned onto Jackie without any of the teasing or amusement that often lingers in her eyes or at her mouth. “I’m not changing my mind.” Jackie’s breath gives way, gusting into a gasp of relief, and Kim raises an eyebrow before she turns her head to look away down the hallway. “I thought you’d know that by now. For someone so perfect you’re really insecure about yourself, you know?” There’s criticism on the words, a show of irritation in her tone, but when she moves it’s to brace her palms at the edge of the window seat so she can hold herself steady as she pushes up onto the far side of the cushion. Jackie sniffs to clear her throat of the brief stick of tension and reaches to draw her textbook in and closed so she can set it aside, but Kim doesn’t turn her head to watch what she’s doing, just accepts the accommodation like it’s her right. She goes on looking down the hallway, swinging her feet over the edge of the seat so she can drum her heels against the wall beneath them; Jackie can feel the thud of each impact run through the support under her, but she doesn’t protest, just stays where she is kneeling at the far side of the cushion from her meister. Kim stares into the distance, her gaze clear and her mouth set, until finally she draws a breath to speak in a perfectly casual tone.

“You don’t need to make up some dumb excuse to wait for me,” she says without turning her head to look at Jackie next to her. “If you want to wait just wait. Lots of weapons do that with their meisters, right? Sometimes the weapons even come with them to the meister classes and just study in the back row or something.”

Jackie blinks at Kim. “You wouldn’t mind me coming with you to your classes?”

Kim snorts. “I don’t usually go to my classes in the first place,” she says. “You’d probably end up attending more than me if you did.” She frowns down the hallway. “I just mean…” She kicks against the wall beneath them harder than she needs to, driving her heel against the stone as if she’s trying to knock it free of its surroundings. “You don’t have to be weird and creepy about seeing me.” Her gaze slides sideways to meet Jackie’s for a moment before she looks away again and shrugs roughly. “Just call me, or something. If I don’t want to answer I won’t. Just don’t memorize my schedule and follow me around without telling me first.”

“I…” Jackie says, or tries to say. Her voice clings to the inside of her throat and knots itself in her chest; she has to press a hand against the strain and clear her throat with some force before she can actually manage to speak properly. “I can call you?”

“Jeez,” Kim groans, and rolls her eyes with as much force as her words carry. “Yeah. Of course. I thought you said you’d had partners before me, don’t you know any of this?” She glances at Jackie again; it’s even briefer this time, hardly enough time for her to see the other girl’s face at all before she turns her head to look away down the adjourning hallway so all Jackie can see of her is the fall of her hair against her collar. “It’s only weird because you make it weird, Jackie. You really don’t know anything about how to be normal, do you?”

Jackie shakes her head. “No,” she says. “Sorry. Thank you.”

“Oh my god,” Kim groans again. “Like that.” And she turns around from the consideration she’s giving the adjacent hallway, twisting on the window seat so suddenly that Jackie barely has time to see the color heating red across the other girl’s cheeks before Kim is bracing a hand hard at the cushion between them and leaning in against the support so she can reach her other hand out for the weight of Jackie’s hair falling around her face. Jackie draws a sharp inhale as Kim’s fingers brush her hair, her whole balance canting in to offer immediate surrender to the urging of her meister’s hand against her head, and Kim leans in to press her mouth to Jackie’s as simply as if there was never any other way for them to greet each other. Jackie’s mouth goes soft at once, her lashes dip to weight over her eyes as quickly, and for the span of a few glowing-warm seconds she doesn’t think about anything but the fit of Kim’s mouth against hers and the heat of the other girl’s touch at her hair. It’s only when Kim draws back that Jackie even thinks to open her eyes, and then her thoughts are so distracted that she’s more charmed by the glow of warmth across Kim’s cheeks than she is thinking about their relatively exposed position in the Academy hallway.

“Don’t be so self-conscious,” Kim says, speaking softly and without easing the brace of her fingers against Jackie’s hair. “That’s way more annoying than just doing whatever you want to do without trying to hide it or whatever.”

Jackie has to swallow to find voice for herself, and even then it’s a little lower and shakier than she intends it to be. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Kim says. “Like right now.” She tips her chin down fractionally so her gaze cuts up through the weight of her lashes as she smiles up at Jackie in front of her. “What do you want to do, Jackie?”

Jackie takes a breath as she reaches for the words to answer; and then she blinks, and sees the way Kim’s mouth is curving, and the shadows in Kim’s eyes, and realizes that it wasn’t really a question as much as an invitation. She still hesitates for a moment, habit and uncertainty holding her back at once; but then Kim shifts her head to the side to tilt herself into an overt suggestion, and even Jackie’s self-consciousness can’t resist that. Jackie lifts her hand from the top of her closed textbook, and reaches out to fit her fingers into Kim’s hair, and when Kim huffs herself into a laugh of satisfaction Jackie is already leaning forward to press her mouth to the other girl’s smile and stifle the heat of amusement into a hum of pleasure instead.

It’ll take her some time to get used to this, but Jackie has always been good at putting in effort where it’s needed to allow her to truly excel.


End file.
